UX the buzzword!!! but whats the difference between UX designer v UI designer?

Michael Curtis
Aug 22, 2017 · 4 min read

What is the difference and when they should be used for creating a digital product.

Intro

This is for anyone who doesn’t understand the varying skillsets. It is a quick insight into what they bring to the digital development space.

It’s also for any designer who has sometimes maybe had the difficulty of explaining what you do, to people who have never had the pleasure/pain of working with designers.

It will focus on what the differences in roles between the user experience designer (UX) and user interaction designer (UI) entail. They are both important for developing a great user experience, but each have a different role to play with different qualities.

This article only skims the surface in what each does. If you want to more just ask.

It’s all UX

A User’s experience is made up of all touch points and interactions they have with a company, its services and its products.

As in the quote above, it is any link that a user has with a company. This applies to both a digital or non digital space. Its not all just about what appears on the screen. It is important that non digital behaviours are not forgotten when working in a digital space.

Building products without input from a UX designer

Designing without peoples behaviour being addressed before the start.

As you can see from above the path will work but the users needs and behaviours are not addressed. This leads to a product not operating at its full capacity, has a cost of “X” amount of money and does not answer what the user wants or needs.

UX designer:

The UX designer needs to be an all seeing eye!

Role: to identify and understand the needs of a user

How: using research methodologies. For example, ethnography (people stalking) which is observing the way people behave in the environment where they interact with a product or company.

Why: identify pain points in users life to establish insights for possible solutions.

UI designer:

UI designer needs to consider all the possibilities of the user when it comes to digital engagement.

Role: design & develop interfaces & interactions

How: using visual based and technical understandings to create and test solutions to customers problems. For example, usability testing of high or low fidelity prototypes.

Why: for proof of concept of the product.

Where does it all fit in the design process?

Sample example of the process

As from the image above we can see from the above image there are five stages to designing any product.

This is not just applicable for the digital process.

For this discussion, the design process has been divided into three stages to show where UX, UI and design thinking takes part.

Empathise and Define: stages are where UX designers utilise their skillsets to observe and understand the problem facing the user. This is where establishing a users problems incentive is important.

Ideate stage: where all stakeholders need to be involved and where using design thinking for initial concept solution.

Prototype and Test stage: it is here that the UI designer will develop & test the concept solution for the users problems. If successful this will then lead to the development of a product.

All of these stages are repeatable and require constant refining to produce a quality output.

Conclusion:

Identifying people with different skills for either role is very important, it is not possible for people to be both. They should maintain strong communication between each. Each role has its own very particular skillsets.

To achieve the best for the user, team and product, it is important to understand when each type of designer should be involved in the design process.

For a team to get the most out of a product for the business and the user. It should be using its designers in the right stages of the development cycle.

Don’t forget they both are design roles, but that does not mean one designer can always do both. There is no such thing as the “UX unicorn” (a mystical designer who can do both brilliantly) so don’t expect to find one.

If you don’t know what designer to apply to certain stages of a product, or what one you are, just ask what is needed! One possible way of imagining it is this; UX designer for Behavioural Research, UI designer for Technical Development.

This original presentation was co-written by Lorna Murray, she is not a medium user though!!

If you have any questions or would like to know more just ask! If you find this helpful please let me know. It helps decide what to cover next.

I hope you found it helpful.

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Michael Curtis

Written by

Product Designer, who practices UX | UI Design.

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